Music and Lyrics
by K-Nice
Summary: After the Destruction of Vulcan, it is only logical that everything change. Spock and Uhura learn to cope with their new reality.
1. Simple Together

**Disclaimer:** Star Trek and its characters belong to their creators. Songs belong to their creators. This particular arrangement of both belongs to me.

**Author's Note: **How listening to music while doing housework turned into writing fic in a new fandom is beyond me. Inspired by **Simple Together **(Alanis Morrisette).

* * *

The flame of his _asenoi_ casts shadows against Spock's pale eyelids in a pattern initially chaotic then merely complex as his mind spins out the relevant equation. This is how he prepares his mind for meditation, marshaling his varied thought processes down to the mathematics of light and air currents, then narrowing his focus from the flame without to the _katra_ within.

His abdomen burns like the lava flow that burst through _T'Khasi's_ split skin, spilling out of the wounds rent by Nero's device like blood poured from Kirk's battered face.

The flame without shifts subtly with his short forceful exhale. Spock restrains the urge to grasp desperately for _cthia_, for peace, because he has known since boyhood this is as difficult as skimming pond debris with one's bare hands.

The bright memory of his mother's laughter as he squats disconcerted in the middle of the garden pond, unable to gather the beads he had scattered with his pudgy toddler hands, beads she soon recognized has belonging to a favorite set of off-world bracelets - His hands drop from their formal pose beneath his chin and press against the phantom heat in his side.

Spock must achieve some form of meditation. It is imperative that he chip away at the vast swirling darkness that lays beneath his fragile veneer of Vulcan calm. Decisions are being made around him and for him and he does not have the luxury of 'dealing with it in his own time' as the Starfleet counselor suggested during his mandatory session.

Determined, he gazes at the firepot and begins again.

The maelström is there where it has always been but it is deeper and fiercer than ever. Like playing an existential game of _kal-toh,_ he carefully selects memories, emotions, sensations and examines them through the lens of logic. Like the scientist he is he probes the foundations, the histology and make up of his green anger and gray grief, the metallic sharpness of bitterness at all he has lost and will lose.

His thirsty anger is quenched by replaying the _Narada _being swallowed by nothingness. The grief is a bottomless pit of which he does not foresee ever plumbing the depths so he builds a bridge over it, one that seems solid clearsteel but is in hindsight, as he steps beyond it, Andoran laceglass. He faces a mindscape paved in razorrock and raining silver stars, all that was blossoming gone sour with the acrid poison of Nero's hate.

Nyota has called every morning since he emerged from the seclusion of the Embassy. Spock knows it is her way of supporting him without imposing on him but the falling stars sound like her voice as they graze him, feel like the undercurrent of sorrow in her messages about the ship and crew and her own doings. Nothing inappropriate for a Chief Communications Officer to impart to a First Officer. Spock wants to hide his face in her hair and huff out his pain dry-eyed as he wraps himself in her body. She would let him, would want him to do it with the same devotion that has her leaving bland comm-messages that reek of her despair.

Spock does not answer his comm when her ID comes up and fights himself over the prudence of listening to her, watching her when it cuts him so deeply. His feet bleed as he walks the path he built for them - the distinguished Starfleet careers where they explored the galaxy side-by-side, inspiring one another to limitless achievement, her touch healing the fires of _Pon Farr_ and a bonding of their souls that would bring him closer to true peace than _kohlinar_ ever could, the children -

Again, he loses his perfect posture, his arms dropping limp in his lap. His breath stutters as his mental form is pierced by the image, born of a meditative session after their first mind meld: Nyota, smiling proudly, handing him a small child (he has seen few infants in person) with skin like hers and ears like his and eyes like his father's and a smile like his mother's, that child growing on a colony world with the freedoms of Earth and the traditions of Vulcan.

She is his, mind and body, as he walks the entire path, their life together evolving before him into an adventure that answers every desire he subsumes. She has already brought such possibility into his life - their philosophical debates and her vehement expression of her feelings - that their remaining together all of her life seems simple logic.

But there will be no more StarFleet for him and his clan's _kun-ut-kalifee _is disparate grains of sand in a collapsing black hole. The Vulcan colonies will never be the same and his children will not smile like his mother. He will not bond with Nyota and find acceptance and peace, and his genius will stagnate in the mundane realities of rebuilding his people. He thought they would be simple together. Sadly, he was mistaken.

Logically, he is not the only Vulcan struggling with these emotions, which frees him from the downward sucking river mud of his perpetual otherness. There are many who have lost all, not just home and planet, not just family and ancestry but the accomplishments of the present and hopes for the future. He cannot be the only off-world Vulcan that is facing leaving a career and a cherish lover behind to see to needs of their people. He feels a solidarity, red like sunlight, that makes him consider reaching for the _k'war'ma'khon._

Before, he typically ended his meditation sessions this way. Once his own thoughts were ordered, emotions dissected and dealt with, Spock would sink to the place where his bond to Amanda and Sarek resided. Wrapped in his mother's warm love and his father's cool acceptance he would dive down into his depths, into the part of him that was part of all and join with the great ocean of shared _V'tosh_ consciousness. Despite his ears or blood, it was there that he felt most Vulcan.

He has not approached the _k'war'ma'khon_ once in the weeks since the destruction. In fact, after building a slapdash barrier to keep his mind from being overwhelmed by the deaths of 6 billion when he still had the Enterprise to captain, Spock has only gone that deep in his mind to add stone walls and moat. In truth, it took several session of joined mediation for him to brush his father's mind without being undone by his mother's absence.

Tonight, however, logic brings him to a place where it seems possible to reconnect. Not just possible, but necessary. Sarek's presence is brittle yet intense, like stained glass shards in a molested place of worship. Still, Spock takes strength from his father, and a warmth that had seemed dim in the shadow of his mother's bolder affection. Thus armored, he pushes through his barriers and into the sea.

What was once as cool and refreshing as an Earth ocean is now as blisteringly hot as a cauldron of fire.

Spock feels his hard-won peace buffeted by the burning of a terrible wave of pain, one that swelled to enormous height before crashing against him with the force of a tsunami. He holds on, at first as a lone island but there are others, calm and sure. They do not attempt to contain, merely enduring until the waves abate. Perhaps it is a single adept overcome by their collective suffering or an aggregate of all the emotion they are trying to suppress. Maybe it is the echo of that last terrible outcry, the agony of a people, a species cut short in its prime.

Whatever the cause, it is not the experience he anticipated. Spock's eyes open slowly as he turns his attention back to himself. He checks his biocontrols, assessing the state of his body. There is a bruise on his hip, healing at an appallingly slow rate. He focuses his energy on the area, though he is likely to re-injure himself the next time his attention pulled inward by some ill-timed recollection. He keeps bumping into things, like the sharp corners of lab tables as he makes preparations to turn his projects over to others.

His body requires sustenance and rest and he has successfully achieved enough calmness of spirit to accomplish both. He first notices the flashing light on his comm as he dutifully ingest something well-balanced and forgettable at the counter of his kitchenette. It is not the right time of day for a message from Nyota and he has resolved to ignore any comm calls from her in the future. Such indulgence would be masochistic and counterproductive. He will send her a written missive informing her of the dissolution of their relationship in light of changed circumstances and he vows to complete the email before retiring. It is unfair to them both to continue silent but he has struggled, his usual eloquence and mastery of Standard falter at the task.

The message is from the Vulcan Embassy. It opens with the latest tally of survivors and repeats information on accessing the catalog of new names. The speaker is female, of middle age but she does not identify herself - she is a functionary, a mouthpiece. There is a subtle mention of the _k'war'ma'khon _event, recommending all have at least one assessment with the Healers now housed in the Embassy.

This is a change as they had been at StarFleet Medical working with the severely injured and then on retreat in the Mojave. Spock is hopeful at this sign of progress when she continues. "After exhaustive consideration, it has been deemed logical that a planet be sought that will serve as a new Vulcan homeworld. With this in mind, the Elders are seeking proposals as to which uninhabited planets may be appropriate."

Spock expects to feel anticipation or even relief and prepares to quash them. He is blindsided by a fresh welling of the bitterness he expunged in his meditation. He had held out hope (in some hidden recess of his mind) that they would settle on an established Vulcan colony. Though such a large influx would tax local infrastructure, there would at least be infrastructure and no immediate need for every living Vulcan to drop what they were doing to pick up a shovel.

The message closes with the traditional salutation and Spock turns sharply toward his desk to begin his preparations. The flame wobbles in the _asenoi,_ and he watches it gutter and die in the breeze his movement creates. He gathers his tattered calm until it covers him as fully as his meditation robe then sits and boots up a PADD. He writes Nyota, succinctly, contacts the Admiralty and starts down a new path, a different life.

He is confident that he just needs to find the right equation to untangle this chaos.


	2. Choux Pastry Heart

**Disclaimer:** Star Trek and its characters belong to their creators. Songs belong to their creators. This particular arrangement of both belongs to me.

**Author's Note: **How listening to music while doing housework turned into writing fic in a new fandom is beyond me. Inspired by **Choux Pastry Heart** (Corinne Bailey Rae)

* * *

After the Enterprise limps home, after they clear her through Medical and spend untold hours debriefing her, Nyota Uhura returns to her dorm room. Her comm panel is flashing spastically with a backlog of messages. She ignores them and sleeps for eighteen hours, then spends two hours crying on the floor of her shower stall. She eats her secret stash of chocolate cookies as she reads message after message from family and old friends. She records a reply, solemn but hopeful, and sends it off to her parents with a long list of cc's.

She cries some more and sleeps some more and then there's a follow-up interview with the Commander in charge of the Long Range Sensor Array and StarFleet Intelligence. Someone suggests she should have alerted them to the unusual Klingon signal and she feels something other than shock and grief. Indignant she calls up her report, and highlights the lines showing it was received by both the Commander and the cryptography desk at SI two days before the attack on Vulcan. Maybe, if she hadn't been confronted with it like that, she might have found her way around drowning in what-ifs so she lets the anger go and is halfway grateful to have that over and done.

They assign her shifts at the Long Range Sensor Array, specifically tasked with listening to whatever is coming out of Romulan space. That only takes up eight hours of her day and isn't enough to keep her from obsessively checking the rescue and recovery lists for the names of friends and professors. Gaila's name appears on the third day; her escape pod was picked up by a merchant ship that would rendezvous with a medical frigate. Some of her loneliness dissipates as she runs her finger over the screen and murmurs "Come home" in Orion Prime.

She fills a few hours in the afternoon volunteering with the StarFleet Aid Liaison where she runs into Sulu and Chekhov and three members of the Xenolinguistics Club. Weekends she offers to translate for Vulcan patients and visitors at the medical center. Evenings, she sits in the library and catalogs reports of Vulcan flora and fauna, great and not-so-great works of literature and art and teaches strangers to say "_Tushah nash-veh k'dou._"

What the Vulcan survivors plan to do is a subject of much speculation from Tellerite sweat lodges to the highest echelons of the Federation government. The Xenolinguistic, Xenobiology and Xenoculture Departments are making every effort help in any way they can. She abstains from the subdued debates over how the language would change and whether efforts should be made to preserve it intact, or if such change should be studied and quantified. Mostly, though, no one has much energy to spare for scholarship as they postulate ways StarFleet officers can support whatever resettlement scheme the Vulcans devise.

Nyota and her former study group spend their usual study period listening to shipping lane chatter on the minute chance that more escape pods are found. They reconstruct data recordings from the hundreds of Vulcan ships that made up a debris field just out of range of the black hole.

After weeks of this, Nyota Uhura is exhausted and unsure of the date. But she knows it is morning and morning means getting out of her rumpled bed or unfolding herself from a classmate's couch or bolting up from a cot in the residents' room at StarFleet Medical. Morning means a shower, inhaling something nutritious and tasteless and moving on to the next assignment.

Morning means calling Spock.

Wherever she is, on duty or off, she takes a break at 0750 and finds a quiet spot. She repeats data she knows he's been copied on just to have something to say, to keep the words he can't hear out of her mouth. She updates him on the progress of the inventory of Vulcan artifacts on Earth and its colonies, or the correct Western Province Andoran pronunciation of "Your second husband is in an irreversible coma" depending on how she's spent the previous day.

At 0719, she arrives at her post at the Long Range Sensor Array. The other cadets and officers glance at her, the now legendary Nyota Uhura, who breaks Klingon cryptography in her spare time and speaks Romulan in her sleep (all three dialects). No one reprimands her for being late because she's ten minutes early, banking the time she'll need to tell Spock the latest. Placing her comm unit in her ear, she knows there are distant planets she has more chance of reaching than her lover who lives right across campus.

Nyota mentally scolds herself for being unkind. Of course Spock is closed off, he is Vulcan and in the grip of powerful emotions. She has seen him retreat before, hold himself still on a precipice until he can make sense of himself. Never, not even before they became romantically entangled, has he ignored her like this. She catches glimpses of him leaving or entering buildings or crossing the quad but he is always too far away. She doesn't want to confront him out in the open or invade his space.

And honestly she's really too busy to be consumed by his absence and the fact that he hasn't replied does not mean he hasn't heard. She clings to her ritual, signing off at 0749 to retreat to the nearest empty office. There are many empty offices. She boots her PADD and idly scans the news feed as the comm program attempts to hail Spock's apartment. It's April 12th, a Monday and thank the stars body memory brought her to the right duty station because she had been truly out of it. The comm program is offering to record a message and she prepares herself to send another missive into the void, holding the PADD up so the camera gets a good angle. That's when she sees it: "Vulcan Elders Search for New Homeworld."

Not a colony as many had suspected but a full-fledged homeworld. She peruses the article, clicks links to the supposed front-runners and tries to stop herself from thinking too much. It does not have to mean what she thinks it means. Spock's complete lack of contact with her may have nothing to do with the Elders plans to resettle the entire Vulcan population.

There are two chairs in front of the office desk and she drops into one. She doesn't have time for this numbness especially since it's all conjecture on her part. It is quite possible this has nothing to do with them, with the 'us' they have become. He has not said he is leaving or what that would mean for their relationship.

He has not said anything.

Conflicting gusts of indignation and regret and fear and hurt and shame slam through her, make her dizzy even as she sits slumped in an uncomfortable chair in the office of a dead officer whose name she doesn't know. She has been waiting for Spock to answer her, waiting on a call that hasn't come and now the StarFleet Bulletin is telling her he may end up clear across the galaxy.

She brings the PADD back up from its precarious dangle in her bloodless fingers. She needs to message him, say the words she's been concealing under shoptalk and be the woman who boldly asked her former professor out, who crossed the cultural divide with him in a hundred small ways and two big ones, the one that demands the respect she is due and expresses her sorrow and joy honestly. He needs to know that she wants to stay here, in this relationship, and face these new challenges by his side.

StarFleet PADDs autoupdate at 0800 and hers beeps suddenly, aggressively, practically dancing across her lap. An urgent email and it could have come in at any time between her passing out last night and her bumbling around this morning.

Of course it's from Spock and she shivers at the sense of trepidation seeing his ID brings her. A mere ten minutes ago it would have been all she wanted and now it fills her with dread. The Standard words are remarkably terse for one who is usually so verbose. He is grateful for their time together. He appreciates her efforts to comfort him in this difficult time. He has decided to join the efforts to rebuild Vulcan society on the new homeworld and will be resigning his commission. He regrets that their close association must end but he wishes her all success in her future endeavors.

She can parse the meaning of the words but she can't understand them. She's been decoding Spock for a while now but these bare, bald phrases don't give her much. Nyota feels the PADD slip from her lap to the floor and lets it fall. Her heart is folding in on itself and the pressure of it makes it hard to breathe.

They have misunderstood each other before; despite the languages they share they often use the same words in different ways. But there is nothing to translate or interpret, there is no code to break. She knows he is grieving, overwhelmed perhaps, but that is no reason to discount his statements. He is Vulcan. This is logical.

Nyota feels the weight of it - and the battle and the genocide and so much death and a whole world dissolving into dust and Gaila still isn't home - press down and crush her tightly folded heart and gasps out a sob that makes her throat ache.

She doesn't want to lose him. She didn't even get a real chance to have him, openly, to be his and have him be hers for all the worlds to see. She meant to stay with him, come what may, and now she won't have the chance, wasn't given the choice.

Its 0810 and she has to get back to her station, has to keep moving on even as everything she's outrunning catches up with her.


	3. Call Me When You Get This

**Disclaimer:** Star Trek and its characters belong to their creators. Songs belong to their creators. This particular arrangement of both belongs to me.

**Author's Note: **How listening to music while doing housework turned into writing fic in a new fandom is beyond me. Inspired by **Call Me When You Get This** (Corinne Bailey Rae). Swahili from Google translate, Vulcan from VLD.

* * *

Spock holds himself rigidly still as he watches the enigmatic older Vulcan return to his preparations to scout out the planet _he_ has chosen as the new Vulcan homeworld.

The level of presumption is galling. Spock strides away, deeper into the hanger in search of his father. He is here because he has volunteered to pilot an experimental warp-capable shuttle to the most distant planet on the Elders' survey list. As a StarFleet trained pilot and science officer with command experience, he is heading a small team that includes an Elder (his father), a zoologist and a botanist. He is looking forward to what may be his last opportunity to boldly go and the notion that it has evaporated as swiftly as his planet is disturbing enough to his equilibrium that he finds a spot between two cargo pallets to process.

On one hand, several pieces of his master equation fall into place once he recognized his own face a hundred or more years hence. This reduces the randomness of the series of events that have led him here. On the other hand, the level of subterfuge involved is disturbing, all the more-so for having been perpetrated by a version of himself.

Regardless, variables are shifting and the outcome of his equation is in flux. Spock admits, in the privacy of his own mind, that the offer is tantalizing, the opportunity to reclaim his path is unexpected and welcome. Yet, confusing. What feels right? By what measure or standard was 'rightness' determined?

The Admiralty has not yet processed his resignation. An exit interview is scheduled for when he returns from his survey mission. Barrett and Pike have offered their condolences and tried in their clumsy human way to convince him to remain with the service. As much as he desired a clean break, his position makes the prototype shuttle available for the relocation effort.

If right and what feels right is what will bring him optimum satisfaction then remaining in StarFleet and continuing his already distinguished career would be a start. After such an unprecedented tragedy it was likely that pure exploration would temporarily give way to security concerns but there would still be vast research potential on unexplored worlds near the contested neutral zones with the Romulans and Klingons. Active duty on a Starship (instead of teaching at the Academy) would allow him the luxury of fulfilling his own curiosities while offering a measure of protection to the new Vulcan homeworld. His superiors repeatedly assure him that provision will be made for him to have a direct hand in the rebuilding, but under the auspices of StarFleet rather than as a permanent member of the colony.

Whatever his future self claims, Spock is not in receipt of any new orders from StarFleet or revised plans from the Vulcan Elders so he continues on to his destination. Preparing the survey vessel for flight is the kind of all-consuming task he needs to quiet his mind. He checks in at the comm station, then accesses the manifest and pre-flight checklist. He signs out a tri-corder from the central office and examines the external sensors and hull integrity. He is so absorbed in data readouts on the compact bridge that he is startled when a voice calls out, "Permission to come aboard?"

Sarek is at the foot of the stairs, flanked by T'Van, a colony world zoologist and Leila Kalomi, a StarFleet botanist. There are introductions and a brief review of their mission parameters. Before long they are on their way, first rising through the cool San Francisco morning then following the curve of the planet to get in position. When he contacts StarBase One for final clearance, he must endure a short speech about how the hopes and prayers of the entire Federation are with the Vulcan people etc before he can toggle the primer. He warns his crew, but the ship is small enough that they can surely feel the harmonics approaching zenith. Spock pushes the lever forward, shooting them into space, into the unknown.

Sarek has taken up the navigation console to his left , T'Van is checking the equipment in the cargo hold for any shifting and Kalomi sits on his right at communications. With so small a crew, the flight sensors demand his full attention. A thought pricks annoyingly at his concentration. The sound of his own voice, weathered by time and pain, proclaiming that he and Kirk will define each other. At the time he dismissed it as nonsensical and irrelevant to the larger issues he faces. Now, this detail is pricking his mind like a stinging nettle caught in one's clothing - not piercing flesh but scratching intermittently until it must be addressed. Spock refocuses on the monitors of the experimental craft. He expects there will be some glitches along the way. This is a very fine ship but it is no Enterprise.

He gives his attention to the idea, if only to fully analyze and dismiss it. Scuttlebutt claims the Admiralty is giving Kirk the Enterprise, a decision that he attributes to needless sentiment. He does see great potential in the brash cadet, but potential that needs to be actualized under the guidance of a more experienced hand. If Pike were Captain and Kirk First Officer he would have no concerns for the ship and her crew. With Kirk in the chair, Spock is bombarded by a bevy of uncertainties that seem on the surface to be about the mission but carry such a strong undertow of anxiety that he immediately understands that they represent his fears for Nyota's safety.

Strangely, her name comes up as Ms. Kalomi attempts to engage T'Van in conversation.

"My language tutor will be very disappointed if I don't at least attempt to speak little Vulcan, so here it goes." She pauses and glances at Spock and Sarek before continuing, "_Sarlah etek dvin-tor. _Was that correct?"

"I have heard worse attempts," T'Van replies then nods formally, "_Vu dvin dor_ _etwel_."

"_Nemaiyo_! Now I can have something to report to Lt. Uhura when we get back."

Spock is about to speak when T'Van beats him to it. "I have met this Uhura. She acted as a facilitator at our temporary housing block. You do well to learn from her; her pronunciation is quite good for a human."

He assumed reports of encounters with her at the Aid office, the Archive, the Medical Center, the intergalactic market, the Academy library and StarFleet Headquarters had to represent a few cases of mistaken identity. Yet, now that her presence in various aspects of survivor life is confirmed, Spock is unsure of what it mean.

"I too have met Ms. Uhura. She has also been mentioned around the Embassy as an exceptional linguist." Sarek's comment is even, informational but Spock stiffens as he continues, "Spock, has your former aide shared her intentions for her career?"

He knows she has read his email but she has not contacted him. In the intervening weeks he saw her more often and braced himself for confrontation but she was always occupied by some urgent project and never noticed him. Spock faces the soft blue glow of their warp signature. "As of our last conversation, her unqualified desire is to serve on the Enterprise."

If this is still the case and he has every reason to believe it is, she will be serving under an untested hooligan who thinks rules exist to stifle his genius. Returning to the Enterprise, learning to work with Kirk will allow him to personally see to her safety. Not only that but there will be time to renew their close association.

How long was he alone before Nyota stepped into his arms? He is cautious and keeps to himself but just being with her touches him deep in his soul . Her mind is like poetry and remains in him even now. The sight of her face as she dreams, secure beside him in his bed is his definition of beauty. The taste and scent of her stirs up passions that surprise him with their intensity and endurance. If he could just hear her voice again,he would know what it is to be loved.

That bright flare of hope is dimmed by his elder self's conviction that his eventual friendship with Kirk would define them both, as if his connection to Nyota will never be recovered. Despite his lifelong yearning for a true friend, Kirk seems poor consolation prize for the relationship he has cast aside for the sake of duty.

His mind runs wild with speculation. If they serve on the Enterprise together, will he be forced to watch her form other relationships? Kirk pursued her in the past to the point she complained about his persistence. Spock's body revolts at the thought of Kirk charming an emotionally vulnerable Nyota.

Spock risks taking his hands from the instrument panel and discreetly attempts to center himself. Ms. Kalomi doesn't notice and in this new reality, Vulcans have come to expect such things. By the time he tunes back in it is time to drop out of warp and begin their approach.

The planet blooms before his screen, more burnt orange than red, and he tells his crew to prepare the equipment in the cargo bay for landing while he begins orbital scans. He uses the momentary privacy to send two subspace messages - one to StarFleet reporting their safe arrival, the other to a private comm.

The words don't exist in Vulcan and he can't bring himself to say them in Standard but they have only ever used Swahili for lover's talk and that is most fitting.

_"Nyota, sikufikiria mimi inaweza kuwa kwa njia hii. Mimi nataka tu wewe kujua, mimi haja ya wewe zaidi kila siku. Simu yangu wakati wewe kupata hii."_

More than anything, this is what feels right.

* * *

Emotionally compromised or not, I couldn't get Spock to say this in English, so here's the translation:

"Nyota, I never thought I could be this way. I just want you to know, I need you more each day. Call me when you get this."


End file.
